Confronting Representations: Performing Indigenous Protests

This project examines self-representations of Aboriginality b Indigenous Australians through public political protests across the twenthieth century. As a form of direct engagement with thenon-Indigenous community, political protests are an important communicative encounter. This work is significant because it reconceptualizes protests as intended staged political/theatrical events in which Indigenous activists actively and consciouly perform Aboriginaltiy. The aim is to discover how contradictions between the self-representations of Aboriginality in the protests and accepted constructions of Aboriginality are/were negotiated and then incorporated into social memory and discourses. The major outcome wil be a monograph.